The package to send to Josephine was ready: a large selection of beauty products for Josephine, letters and sweets for Matthias and Sophie, and for Amelie, too. At the last moment, Clara had included an extra hand cream for Marianne Gropius.
If you think it’s all right, please give the cream to Marianne, and let her know I was very happy to receive the letters. But if you think it will cause problems with Gerhard, then don’t, she had written to Josephine on a separate card.
Next came Isabelle’s. She loved all of the Bel Étage’s products.
“Oh my goodness, that looks like a lot of work,” said Laszlo, who came in carrying a load of loose papers and jars of cream. He looked around for somewhere to set it all down, but space was a rare commodity in Clara’s office.
“I’m packing Christmas presents for my friends,” Clara explained. “But Isabelle’s neighbors have started using my products, so now Isabelle’s wish list is so long I have to send it as two or three separate packages. And I want to send something to Lilo, too. They must get frightfully cold winds so high up in the mountains, so a protective oil-rich hand cream can’t hurt, can it?”
The parfumier pulled a chair over with the tip of his right shoe, then heaved the things he was carrying onto it. “Send her a jar of our newest hand cream as well.” He handed her a frosted-glass jar.
“It’s finished?” Thrilled, Clara took the cream from Laszlo. It was the last of the products for the Belle Époque line.
“Sent with best wishes from Klaus,” said Laszlo with a smile. “And he wants you to know that if you’re still not satisfied, then he’s at his wit’s end.”
“I know I’ve been on your backs about it, and I apologize for that. But if I weren’t satisfied now . . .” Clara opened the jar. The contents were a pale pink, like buttercream on a strawberry tart. It looked wonderful, and Clara had to suppress a squeal of delight. No singing anyone’s praises prematurely, she warned herself. She dipped her right index finger into the cream and smeared it onto the back of her hand. It spread easily and had a slight shine, but left no oily film on the skin, as the last attempt had done. It gave off a fresh, delicate scent. “Outstanding! Now I’m satisfied. Women who work hard with their hands every day deserve the best. Our new advertising specialist can get started with the Belle Époque line in the new year.”
“Our new advertising specialist?” Laszlo’s eyebrows rose.
Clara laughed. “Yes. Therese, would you believe, convinced me that we desperately need someone like that, and that she would be just the one for the job. And now I’ve taken her on, just like that, though I can hardly believe it myself.” She hoped silently that she would not regret her rash decision one day.
Stefan’s voice interrupted them. “What’s going on here?” he grumbled. “Has there been an earthquake and I missed it?” He waved a hand at the chaos on Clara’s desk.
“I’m in the middle of packing presents,” Clara said. Stefan rarely came to the manufactory, especially this early in the day. What was he doing here?
Laszlo cleared his throat. “I’ll be going—”
“No, wait,” Clara said hurriedly. “There’s another matter I want to talk to you about.” She hoped that the look in her eyes was not too obviously pleading.
“Generous as ever when it comes to others, I see,” said Stefan, looking at the packages and ignoring the parfumier.
“My friends are at least as generous as I am. Remember the three crates of champagne that Isabelle sent us just last week?” said Clara, angry that she should have to justify herself to Stefan. “How can I help you?” she said then, as nicely as she could, hoping he would not ask her for money in front of Laszlo.
“Champagne!” said Stefan, as if he were talking about well water. “Don’t you see how much time you’re wasting with all your charity? Visiting Therese, checking on Lilo’s hotel, and now here you are packing dozens of Christmas gifts! What’s next? A visit to the orphanage or the soup kitchen? Didn’t you say something about problems at the Stuttgart shop? Shouldn’t you be taking care of that? If you’re going to shut me out of the business, then at least do the work yourself instead of frittering away the day.”
Stefan turned on his heel and went out, leaving Clara thunderstruck. What did he think he was doing, making a scene like that? And for nothing!
It had been happening more and more often lately. Stefan had adopted an inappropriate tone—irritated, arrogant, erratic. Several times now, he had gone off to an event in the evening only to return an hour later. If Clara asked him about it, she got sullen silence in response.
Stefan and she were oil and water. They simply did not belong together, Clara thought sadly, yet again.
Laszlo cleared his throat a second time.
Clara looked up, unable to hide her hurt. “Forgive me,” she said with a helpless shrug. Oh, marvelous! Now Laszlo knew about the friction in their marriage, too.
Laszlo picked up a length of wrapping paper. “I’ll help you. We’ll get it done much faster together.”
For a time they worked in silence. Laszlo held the paper while Clara cut it to length. Then he wrapped the packages, and she bound them with heavy twine.
We work so well together, Clara thought, not for the first time. From turned-down eyes, she watched her parfumier. He was a modest man who worked well in silence, but who radiated a strong natural charisma. She had observed that she was not the only person who felt very good when he was close by. Laszlo was always friendly and uncomplicated. He wasn’t moody, didn’t seem to have a darker side. At least, that was the man Clara had come to know. Why hadn’t she met someone like him earlier in her life?
Useless thoughts! She rapped herself mentally over the knuckles. She put the twine aside and said, “That other thing I wanted to talk to you about . . .”
Without a word, he moved the pile of documents and jars of cream from the chair onto the floor, then he sat down. Elbows on knees, supporting his chin on his thumbs, he looked at her earnestly.
“I’ve been thinking about this for a while,” Clara began cautiously. “I’ve been asked many times by my customers if I would open a Bel Étage in their hometown. Then they could buy my products and use them the whole year. I tell them that I would love to do that, but more shops right now would simply be too much work. I only have to think about Stuttgart . . .” Clara sighed and raised her eyebrows.
So far, she had lost her entire staff twice over—to pregnancy, marriage, loss of interest, a broken leg. At the moment, the shop was closed, but Clara was planning a trip to the city in the new year to look for new personnel and train them. Or she might close the shop there permanently.
“In short, what do you think of starting a mail-order branch? A catalog with the main products from the Bel Étage line and the complete Belle Époque line. Then my customers in other towns could order whatever they wanted the whole year. In fact, any woman could order my products, even if she’s never been to a Bel Étage or can’t afford a holiday to Baden-Baden or Meersburg.”
Clara waited excitedly for Laszlo’s reaction.
“It’s a good idea,” he said after thinking it over for a moment. “You would have to talk to Klaus to find out if the manufactory can increase its production, but with the hardworking women there, I don’t think that will be a problem.”
Clara nodded. “I could always take on more women and introduce a second shift. People are always asking me about a job.”
“And you would need storage space and women to take care of the shipping and invoices. There probably isn’t enough space here. But I’m sure we could find a suitable warehouse and reliable personnel. Maybe you should consider hiring a secretary, too? Someone to give you a little support every day. An assistant like that could save you the trip to the post office, for example,” Laszlo said, pointing to the stack of parcels.
“You’re reading my mind again, aren’t you? I’ve been wishing more and more lately that I had an assistant. I might have been smarter to get an as
sistant before I hired Therese for the advertising. But somehow I’ve been relying on the right person to just . . . cross my path one day. Sometimes things just sort themselves out.” As she said it, she knew it didn’t sound very professional.
But Laszlo nodded. “Sometimes you can do worse than to sit back and let things come to you! Maybe Therese could take over a task or two. She won’t be drafting advertisements the entire day, after all, though I could imagine that advertising is very important if the mail-order trade is to be a success.”
“I never thought about it like that.”
“But there’s still one thing we haven’t considered: Will the women who order your creams and lotions be able to use them correctly? In your shops, you show the women exactly how to cleanse their skin, how a face massage works, and everything else that’s important for their beauty. It isn’t nearly enough to just smear on a cream as if you’re rubbing lard into a Sunday roast.”
Clara frowned. “That’s true. I hadn’t thought about that. That means I need to add a kind of instruction manual where I describe the benefits of each product and how to use them properly. Maybe even with a few illustrations?” Clara’s heart beat faster, as it always did when something kindled her enthusiasm. An instructional brochure! She wanted to drop everything and start on it there and then! But dozens of questions were popping into her head. How were the women supposed to find out at all that they could order her products by mail? Advertising in a newspaper? Wasn’t that terribly expensive? Just then, there was a knock at the door, and Sabine Weingarten appeared.
“Klaus Kohlwitz said I’d find you up here, but I can see that you’re busy.”
Clara gave the pharmacist’s wife a friendly smile and said, “We’re in the middle of discussing something, but I can spare a few minutes. What is it about?”
Laszlo stood up again to go. And, again, Clara asked him to stay. She didn’t want Sabine to settle in for too long.
“Unless it’s something you’d rather talk about privately,” Clara said to her.
Sabine shook her head. “I really don’t know where to begin.” She let out a small, embarrassed laugh. “At home, I’ve been finding the walls closing in more and more. My two little boys are darlings, but spending the whole day building towers out of blocks with them . . .” She groaned. “Every morning, I see your workers coming here to your manufactory, and they all seem to be in such a good mood that I . . . I envy them. They meet other people, they earn their own money, they get to see something outside their own four walls.” Sabine let out a profound sigh. “I’ve offered to help Frieder in the pharmacy so many times, but he rejects it out of hand!” Sabine’s shoulders sagged, her head, too, but then she looked up again. “But I’m very good with numbers! And I can hold my own when it comes to organizing things. I know it! If only Frieder would see it the same way.”
Clara frowned. It was not news to her that Frieder Weingarten preferred Sabine to be the good housewife and mother and nothing more.
In recent years, she and Sabine had gotten to know each other a little better. Their lives were quite different, and while they were not close friends, they were always friendly with one another. “How can I help?” Clara asked cautiously.
Sabine took a deep breath and blew all the air out again before saying in a rush, “I wanted to ask if you perhaps have a job for me! Don’t worry, I don’t mean as one of your beauty specialists, but as something in the background, so to speak. I can take the children to the new kindergarten for a few hours every day. I know it won’t be easy to convince Frieder about it, but I have a right to a bit of happiness and satisfaction, too, don’t I?” Clara was flabbergasted. In the years she had known Sabine, she had never seen her so courageous. She seemed very serious about it indeed.
“Well, that’s . . .” Laszlo began to speak, but then held his tongue, as if unsure whether his opinion was wanted. He looked inquiringly at Clara.
Clara grinned. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
When she saw him nod, they both burst out laughing. “Well, isn’t that a coincidence.”
“What is it? Why are you laughing? Did I say something wrong?” Sabine looked shocked at their reaction.
“Absolutely not,” Clara hurriedly reassured her. “Quite the opposite, in fact. You are in exactly the right place at the right time.”
When Sabine left—with the promise of a contract as Clara’s future assistant—Laszlo said, “‘Sometimes things just sort themselves out’—who said that just now?”
And they burst into laughter again.
Clara leaned back in her chair, content with the world for now. Everything was so much fun and was going so well! She could not remember the last time she had felt so lighthearted.
“Now that you have your first staff member for the mail-order business, I’ve got another suggestion that I’ve been mulling over for a while,” said Laszlo.
“I’m all ears!”
“It’s about the labels on your products. They’re lovely, don’t get me wrong. But perhaps now is the right time—looking ahead to the possible mail orders—to take a fresh look at them.”
“Yes,” said Clara slowly. She was starting to feel almost intoxicated by the day’s sudden turns and all the new ideas.
“You are the founder of the Bel Étage, the figurehead,” Laszlo said. “Without you, this company would not exist at all. Without you, women would still be using creams that smell as antiseptic as a hospital and do more harm than good to the delicate skin of the face. But you are also the very best example of just how effective and beneficial your creams are. You look so . . . young and beautiful!” he exclaimed.
Clara’s heart fluttered a little, as if it had sprouted wings. “I didn’t know you were such a flatterer,” she said, sounding sterner than she felt.
His cheeks reddened, and he turned away in embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to overstep. What I’m trying to say is this: Could you imagine having labels printed with your own likeness on them? That would be the best advertisement of all.”
“My face on a label?” Clara couldn’t help herself. She burst into laughter again, and she laughed so hard that she soon had tears rolling down her cheeks. She explained to her confused parfumier how she had suggested to Isabelle to try something new instead of using the same old plain labels for her champagne. “Back then, I suggested she put her likeness on her champagne labels. She had her portrait painted by Renoir, and this portrait was reproduced for the labels on her bottles. It was a huge success, and these days everyone calls Isabelle the Champagne Queen.” She shook her head to regain a little composure. “I still can’t believe I ever came up with the idea in the first place. But to do the same for Bel Étage never even crossed my mind.”
Laszlo had listened with interest, and said, “Do you want to have Renoir paint your portrait, too?”
“Good heavens no!” Clara laughed. “The photographer around the corner will do just fine.”
Therese had pinned Clara’s hair up into a perfect chignon, highlighted her eyes with kohl, and skillfully applied a little rouge to her cheeks. Clara could not understand why so many women still thought of makeup as somehow disreputable. What was wrong with making the best of oneself? She had the same thought when she chose her dress: the cream-colored fabric and round neckline showed off her flawless skin to best advantage.
Clara placed great store in a good appearance. She would never allow herself to be seen wearing a stained laboratory coat or with her hair unwashed; also, for her, beauty was something internal, an attitude. When a woman was beautiful, she was beautiful every hour of every day. A woman who made herself beautiful for an hour did so only to please others, not to please herself.
Today, however, Clara had to appeal to herself and others as well.
“Lift your head a little higher.”
Clara raised her head slightly.
“Too far. Down a little. Now turn to the left.”
Clara lowered her head again
and looked to her left. Her nose actually touched a wave-shaped element that was part of a huge stucco mural on the wall, depicting a near-naked woman in a flowing dress.
“People are apt to associate beauty with a Greek goddess. I attempt to reproduce this same association in my work,” the photographer had said when Clara had explained what she was looking for. He could also offer her a backdrop of a distant mountain range or a wintery background, if she preferred. He had shown her one large canvas backdrop after another. When Clara dared ask if it might be possible for her to be photographed in front of a plain white wall, the photographer had looked at her with horror!
Now she was standing in front of the stucco bas-relief with the Greek goddess. She worried that the background would be too much for her cosmetic labels. The plaster tickled Clara’s nose, and she stifled a sneeze while the photographer’s young assistant arranged various lamps around her.
It felt like half an eternity passed before the photographer was satisfied, but finally he barked, “Do not move!”
She had not realized that having her photograph taken was such a serious undertaking. How must it have been for Isabelle when she sat for Renoir?
“Almost ready,” the photographer muttered.
Clara’s nose touched the plaster again. At the same moment, motion outside the photographer’s window caught her eye. She blinked. But that was . . .
“Young lady, you moved!” the photographer cried out, outraged, as Clara turned to face the window.
“Someone is looking in,” she said.
“What of it?” The photographer rushed up to Clara and adjusted her head back to its previous position. “It is perfectly normal for someone to watch an artist at work.”
“But I saw the same man this morning, twice already. First in Unterstadtstrasse and then beside the Hotel Residenz. What if he’s following me?” she said, and felt a touch of panic come over her. Is this what her lawyer had warned her about? Was someone spying on her for Gerhard?
“Nonsense,” said the photographer, although he didn’t sound very sure of himself. He, too, looked out of his front window where the dark-haired man was still standing.
The Queen of Beauty (The Century Trilogy Book 3) Page 39
